False Front Read Online Free PDF

overlaps both the time the husband said he was at home and most of the time he said that he was absent from the home.’
    Lucinda turned on her heels and walked out without a word. She was churning with frustration. If there was an answer, he would find it. Wouldn’t he? And if he didn’t, where did that leave them? A possible killer who could never be prosecuted? A suicide her husband would not understand or accept? Or was there even a worse possibility that she could not yet begin to imagine?
    Lucinda walked under the unnatural glow of mercury lights shining down on the sidewalk. She pulled open a tall glass door and strode up to the desk in the lobby of the high-rise apartment building. She flipped out her badge and said, ‘I am here to speak to April Flowers.’
    A bone-thin, male receptionist with pitch-black hair and cold blue eyes gave her an appraising look. He reached forward to a panel of buttons.
    ‘I’d rather you didn’t do that. Why don’t you just give me access to her floor?’
    The young man’s mouth formed an exaggerated O. ‘My, my,’ he said. ‘Sounds serious.’
    Lucinda flashed a grim smile and waited.
    He fidgeted in silence for a moment and then said, ‘OK. I wouldn’t want to interfere with police business.’ He started around the counter and stopped. ‘Maybe I should call the manager first?’
    Lucinda folded her arms across her chest. ‘You are incapable of making a simple decision on your own? How often do you call the manager? Every evening? Do you ever worry about being too much of a nuisance? Has the manager ever expressed displeasure over your inability to think for yourself?’
    He flushed red. ‘That was totally uncalled for, Officer. I was just thinking aloud.’
    ‘Lieutenant,’ Lucinda corrected.
    ‘Whatever! Follow me,’ he said as he swung around the counter and headed for the elevator. When the doors opened, he scanned the identity card on the lanyard around his neck and hit the button for the tenth floor.
    Lucinda stepped inside the lift and asked, ‘Apartment number?’
    ‘Ten-ten.’
    As the doors started to close he stuck his face close to the diminishing gap. ‘If she’s not home, you are not authorized to go inside her unit.’
    Reaching the hallway, Lucinda looked up and down its length at the rough concrete walls, shiny concrete floor, industrial hardware – typical new construction for the current hip residential spot in downtown. She turned right and walked half the length in that direction before arriving at the door marked ‘1010.’
    She listened for a moment but could hear no sound from the apartment. She pressed the door buzzer and thought she heard the whispery sound of slippers slipping across the concrete floor inside. Metal slid softly and an eye appeared in the peephole. Lucinda held up her badge.
    The door opened a crack. ‘Yes, may I help you?’
    ‘April Flowers?’
    ‘Yes?’
    Lucinda held her badge toward the crack in the door as she tried to get a good look at the woman on the other side. She couldn’t see much but a bowed head with long, shiny blonde hair hanging down straight as a plumb line, obscuring her features. ‘Lieutenant Pierce. Homicide. I need to talk to you about a friend of yours.’
    ‘I have a dead friend?’
    ‘I think not. Please may I come in?’ Lucinda asked.
    April shut the door, disconnected the chain and reopened the door, inviting Lucinda inside. She was shorter than Lucinda but average in stature for a woman. Her thinness, though, made her appear tiny – small enough to be blown away by a baby’s breath.
    She led Lucinda past the kitchen and into the living room. The end wall was all glass with a view over the downtown area including the lush Robert E. Lee Gardens in Stonewall Jackson Park. Ironically, the street renamed in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr bordered one side of the open green space. Only in Virginia, Lucinda thought.
    As they sat down across from one another, Lucinda asked, ‘Do you